


Held Together By Duct Tape and Faith

by ArchangelUnmei



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Bittersweet, Cindy is a BAMF, F/F, Grief/Mourning, Minor Character Death, Strangers to Lovers, World of Ruin (Final Fantasy)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 20:40:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29177334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArchangelUnmei/pseuds/ArchangelUnmei
Summary: Cindy has never considered herself a hero. But ten years in darkness can make heroes of the most unlikely people, even a mechanic armed with electrical tape and a dubious grasp of wiring (and a really big wrench). Even a formerly-Imperial mercenary with a half-busted airship in need of repairs.Cindy doesn't have any experience repairing airships, but an engine is an engine, and she intends to learn fast.
Relationships: Cindy Aurum/Aranea Highwind
Comments: 3
Kudos: 11
Collections: World of Ruin Big Bang





	Held Together By Duct Tape and Faith

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the World of Ruin Big Bang in conjunction with my amazing artist, [Super](https://twitter.com/et_versa). Find them on Twitter over @et_versa, and Tumblr @rose-madder-gaze. Please please go tell them how amazing they are.
> 
> Podfic coming soon, stay tuned.

Cindy wakes up in darkness.

That isn't unusual, these days. Sunrise has been coming later and later; she used to wake up soon after dawn, now waking up at the same time has dawn hours away. This isn't the usual winter shortening of days, either. It's the middle of summer, and even if it wasn't, the sun has never risen so late before. Daylight is barely six hours now. People are whispering it's because of the tragedy in Altissia, the death of the Oracle and the destruction of the city, the Astrals angered by the Empire's blatant attack.

Honestly, Cindy isn't so sure. The Oracle's death is a terrible loss, but wouldn't the Astrals have been just as angered by the attack on Insomnia? Then again, that was about when the night started getting longer, though so slowly that no one properly noticed for awhile. So maybe this _is_ the Astrals' anger pouring out over Eos. Either way, Cindy's just a mechanic, it's not really in her wheel house to sit and speculate about the nature of the gods. She'll leave that to His Highness and his friends.

She lays in bed, blinking up at the ceiling as she tries to figure out what woke her. Her internal clock has always been pretty good, and it's still the middle of the night. Rolling over and checking her phone confirms it - 4:37am.

A sudden beam of light cuts across her window, shining bright in between the curtains, and Cindy starts and drops her phone. For a second she thinks it's headlights, a late hunter coming in for repairs. She doesn't dare let herself hope it's the Regalia. Last she and Cid had heard, the boys were finally setting out for Altissia, and that had been over a month ago.

Besides, as Cindy's sleep-fogged mind finally starts to boot up properly, she realizes the lights are far too bright to be any car-mounted headlights, or at least not any _she's_ ever installed. And the angle is wrong, the light coming _down_ through her curtains-

The sound that woke her finally registers; the whine of repulsors, the hum of a super-charged engine, though it's sputtering enough to make the mechanic in Cindy throw off her covers in sudden alarm. She's heard those sounds before, Imperial airships sweeping low over the tiny town, on their way to the once-gleaming city to the east. And this one doesn't sound all that healthy.

She barely takes the time to pull on her boots; even in a mad rush she knows better than to run out into the scrub around Hammerhead with bare feet. She'd stepped on a cactus once as a child and never made the same mistake again, she even still has the scars to remind her. She clatters down the stairs that lead from the living area down to the garage, yelling over her shoulder for Cid to stay put and ignoring the sleepy, gruff response. She snatches the shotgun off the rack by the door on her way past and bursts out into the chilly night air, ears still tracking the whine of straining engines.

It's coming down to land in the wide, empty stretch of scrub just outside the town. Cindy can see it now, flashing red and white lights and trailing smoke that's nearly invisible against the inky sky. She turns in a circle, eyes straining upward, but as far as she can tell this one ship is alone. Strange. If this was some sort of attack, Cindy thinks they would have opened fire by now. Defectors? It's possible, though why they would come to Hammerhead and not somewhere better equipped, like Lestallum or Galdin, she has no idea.

She squares her shoulders, adjusting her grip on the gun as she makes her way across the road. The ship is just settling down awkwardly in the dust with a screech of strained engines that makes Cindy wince. She's not exactly imposing; one woman in oily boots and a flimsy nightshirt, hair tangled around her face and clutching a single shotgun. But she'll defend her home from anything she needs to, and behind her she can hear shouting as some of the hunters staying in the settlement start to wake up. She's not the only defender, just the quickest.

After a tense few seconds that seem to take a hundred years, the hatch on the ship hisses with released hydraulics and begins to lower. A blue light unlike anything Cindy's ever seen before spills out around the edges, bright against the darkness and silhouetting several figures waiting to come down the ramp. Cindy starts to raise her gun just in case, but her subconscious has already identified the shadowy figures, and her heart jumps.

Gladiolus stalks down the ramp first, nearly before it's fully down, and the bubble of relieved laughter freezes solid in Cindy's throat. Every line of Gladio's body screams that something is _wrong_ , his shoulders hunched in and head lowered, like he's trying to fend off some unseen attack that could swoop down at any moment. His steps are heavy and loud against the metal ramp. He doesn't seem hurt, but it's hard for Cindy to tell in the dark.

He brushes by her without acknowledgement, but before Cindy can worry too much about him her attention is drawn back up the ramp. Prompto looks like he was dragged along under the airship at least halfway from Niflheim, his clothes torn and even in the darkness Cindy can see the bruises on his arms and face. He's got both hands wrapped around Ignis' upper arm, steadying him as they both make their way down to solid ground.

All of Cindy's joy at seeing them is entirely gone now, twisted into bitter dread in the pit of her stomach. They'd heard through Iris who heard from Cor that Ignis had been injured in Altissia, but Cindy hadn't realized the injury had been... She'd been imagining a broken arm, a bullet from an MT, not something...

"And... there!" Prompto tries to smile as he and Ignis step down onto dirt, but it's cracked all around the edges. He keeps it, though, like the forced smile is the only thing standing between him and tears. "We're back on the ground, Ignis."

"Thank you, I can feel that," Ignis' voice is subdued, hollow, and Cindy's dread is only growing. None of them are themselves. Something is very wrong, and that something is very obvious when some _one_ is still missing.

"Oh... right," Prompto looks sheepish, and gives Ignis' arm a pat. He doesn't let go though, and Ignis doesn't brush him off, the two of them leaning together like it's all that's holding them up. Prompto shakes himself a bit and finally seems to notice Cindy, forcing the falsely cheerful grin back into place. "Hey Cindy!"

"No, hon," Cindy shakes her head slowly, still looking up the ramp. She can see the shadows of a couple more people moving around, probably crew stowing things after the journey, but no one else. "You don't gotta pretend with me." She pauses, swallowing, but the question is hanging there in the darkness over all their heads, waiting to be asked. And it seems that the bitter destiny of asking it has fallen on her, by virtue of being the quickest, the first on the scene, the first to notice the empty hole.

"Where's-"

"He isn't coming," Gladio's voice is harsh enough it makes Cindy jump. He'd stopped walking a dozen steps away from them, barely visible in the gloom. His shoulders are shaking.

Cindy's heart drops into her toes in sudden panic. There's no way- Noctis couldn't- "You mean he's..."

"He's coming _back_!" Prompto says with surprising fierceness. His grip on Ignis' arm tightens, but Ignis makes no protest. "He is. He's just... not here right _now_."

"Not like we need him right _now_ ," Gladio spits bitterly, and resumes his stalk back toward the lights of Hammerhead.

Prompto swallows hard, and Ignis reaches over and pats his hand. "Come on," he murmurs just loud enough for Cindy to hear. "We could all use some rest."

"R-right," Prompto seems to perk a little when he can focus on someone else, rather than the looming hole where four is now three. He starts guiding Ignis carefully back to Hammerhead, leaving Cindy standing at the bottom of the ship's ramp.

With an unknown, presumably Imperial crew.

She can hear more hunters coming behind her now to act as back-up, so she squares her shoulders. She keeps her shotgun slung over her shoulder, not wanting to seem like too much of a threat and unintentionally provoke a violent response. Clearly the crew must be _somewhat_ friendly if they brought the boys back here, but Cindy isn't willing to take many chances right now, not with Noctis away Astrals-know-where.

"Hello?" she calls warily, and one of the shadowy figures steps forward to start down the ramp toward her.

To Cindy's surprise, it resolves itself into a tall, shapely woman, wearing black leather. Her silver hair is tied back into a braid down her back and- she's not _that_ tall, Cindy amends, as the woman steps off the end of the ramp. She's only a centimeter or two taller than Cindy, the two of them looking almost eye to eye as they regard each other. The woman's expression is cool and closed off, and Cindy can only imagine what she looks like, standing there in her night clothes with a beat-up shotgun over one shoulder.

Still, her Pawpaw didn't raise a girl who was going to shy back at the first sign of intimidation. Cindy opens her mouth to demand an explanation, but the other woman beats her to it.

"I'm Aranea," she says, tone clipped and wary. She's not carrying a weapon, Cindy realizes, and that eases the tension a little. "I'm no friend of the Empire... not anymore. I owed them," she nods toward Hammerhead, where the boys had disappeared. "I thought the least I could do was make sure they were safe."

"That's good of you," Cindy takes her hand off the butt of her gun, shifting her stance into something more relaxed, and watches Aranea shift in response. "Cindy Aurum. Them boys have been through a lot... way more than I know. So thank you, for making things a bit easier on 'em."

Cindy hesitates, glancing over her shoulder, but the question is burning in her and she knows that asking any of the three would only be ripping into fresh wounds. She isn't that cruel. "Do you... Do you know what's happened to the Pr- King?" Cindy amends at the last minute.

For a moment Aranea looks blank, like she's not sure who Cindy means. "Oh- yeah. He's in there," she jerks her thumb over her shoulder toward the interior of her ship, and it takes everything Cindy has not to leap past her. Gladio and Prompto had made it sound like Noctis was a million miles away, but if he was truly just inside-

Aranea catches at her elbow and Cindy whirls around to look at her. The strange blue light reflects off Aranea's hair, casting her expression with unnatural shadows and making any emotion there completely unreadable. They stare at each other for a long moment, but then Aranea lets her go without saying anything.

Cindy turns on her heel and climbs the ramp, her dusty boots making hollow sounds on the grated metal. Aranea follows her up, though Cindy doesn't feel as nervous having her at her back as she probably should.

The ship isn't as big inside as it looks from the ground, most of the bulk taken up by engines and machinery. There's one corridor through the center of the ship, with storage compartments and troop seats on either side, and through at the front end Cindy can catch a glimpse of control panels and the pilot's seat. Her fingers itch to take a closer look, the mechanic in her fascinated, but the rest of her is wholly distracted.

Wedged into an alcove, completely out of place and deeply surreal because of it, the Crystal of Lucis pulses with a starkly serene blue light. It barely fits, strapped into place with crude black netting, and Cindy shivers as she thinks about having to ride all the way back from Gralea with _that_. She's never seen it in person before, but she's heard enough stories from Cid, it's unmistakable. As a child she'd always imagined the Crystal must be warm. It protected all of Insomnia, and on clear days you could see the dome of the Wall from Hammerhead, shimmering with heat haze.

But it isn't. Maybe it's because of the setting, shoved in haphazardly among Imperial steel and strapped down with a dignity far below its station, but the light of the Crystal is cold. Not cold like winter, like Shiva's icy wind, but... impersonal. Cindy knows just enough about the Astrals to remember that the Crystal is Bahamut's gift to mankind, but standing here bathed in its light with all the darkness and the shrieking daemons outside, she's not sure Bahamut cares about her at all.

"Yeah, in there," Aranea says softly, and Cindy nearly jumps. She'd been so busy staring at the Crystal she'd forgotten the other woman was there. "I didn't see it, but Prom told me that Noctis got pulled into the Crystal and disappeared. He said to wait for him, that he'd be back."

Cindy wonders for a moment about how familiarly Aranea speaks about the boys, but puts the thought aside for another time. She swallows, staring at the crack in the Crystal and trying not to imagine it as a giant toothy maw, devouring the one hope the world had.

It doesn't help.

"W-well-" her voice shakes, and she pauses to take a deep breath. She's not qualified for this- any of this. She's just a mechanic. What does she know about Astrals and daemons and Kings?

Then again, Cid had "only" been a mechanic when he set out with King Regis all those years ago.

The boys need time to rest. Even the brief glimpse Cindy had gotten showed her that they're all in shock. They need time to come to terms with what happened, what they've lost, and decide what they need to do next. But Cindy has a creeping feeling that time is something they might not have. She desperately wishes Cor was here to make the decision, but even if she called him this minute, who knows how long it would take him to arrive.

She clenches her fists, and turns away from the Crystal to face Aranea. "We need to get the Crystal somewhere safe, to give His Highness time to do... whatever he needs to do."

"Okay," Aranea draws out the word, giving Cindy a skeptical look, and Cindy flushes. "Where? Where could we _possibly_ take the giant glowing Crystal that it won't immediately be swarmed by daemons-"

A dog barking outside startles them both. Aranea scowls, but Cindy's eyes go wide. "I know that bark- That's the Prince's dog."

"Noctis has a dog?" Aranea raises an eyebrow, but follows Cindy as she hurries back down the ramp. Umbra is sitting at the bottom, tail sweeping a cloud of dust into the air. He barks again when he sees Cindy, getting up to dance around her legs. There's something tied to his collar, and it takes her a minute to get him to sit still enough that she can take it.

It's a scrap of paper, folded over several times. It looks water-stained at the edges, and when Cindy unfolds it the ink is smeared but still readable. Aranea peers over her shoulder at the unfamiliar looping handwriting.

"Angelgaard."

There's a pause as they both try to remember what that is. Cindy snaps her fingers. "That island, off the coast of Galdin Quay. It's supposed to be a prison or something, daemons never spawn there."

"Fitting," Aranea says dryly, and Cindy's elation at finding an answer dries up as reality sets in again. Before she can think of what to say, Aranea sighs and puts her hands on her hips, tilting her head back to look up at her ship. "Not sure this girl can get all the way to Galdin though, not without serious repairs."

Cindy's heart lifts again, just a little. The world they're stepping into now is unknown and terrifying but- but maybe there _is_ something she can do.

"I know a good mechanic."

\----

It isn't quite that easy, of course.

Cindy is a good mechanic, but she's never handled anything as big and complex as an airship before, and never anything of Gralean make. Luckily, one of the two men Aranea brought with her, Wedge, the thinner one, is an engineer. He's not as used to actually digging into the guts to make repairs, but he knows a lot more about the theories of how the thing works than Cindy does. Cindy hauls her tools out from the garage and together they start figuring out what they need to do to get the ship back into the air.

She loses herself in the intricacies of it; the bolts and cables and the strangely delightful fact that Gralean hydraulic fluid smells subtly different than what she's used to. Time drifts away from her, until somewhere on the other side of the engine assembly Wedge says "Hey, shouldn't the sun be up by now?"

Startled, Cindy turns to look out the nearest hatch. Sure enough, the square of sky she can see is still black and clouded over, not even any stars to be seen. An uneasiness settles over her, fingers curling tighter around the wrench she's holding.

"Yeah...." she says slowly. She looks at her watch to be sure, but it only confirms what her gut had already told her. It's past noon, and even on the darkest days the sun has never risen later than ten before.

Outside, hunters and civilians are huddled in small groups, talking in hushed tones and casting long looks up at the sky. It looks gloomier than what clouds alone can account for, as though some sick miasma has settled over the whole world, or at least this little part of it. Maybe Cindy's imagining it, but it looks even darker, thicker to the east, toward Insomnia.

The sun doesn't rise at all that day, and not for many days after it. 

\----

Repairing the airship takes almost a week; the damage isn't extensive and it mostly just needs a tune-up, but Cindy has to puzzle through how to apply her car knowledge to something an entirely different shape first. Prompto comes and goes, offering to help with anything Cindy and Wedge need. She can tell he's sincere, but anytime he stays for more than a few minutes his eyes drift toward the blue glow of the Crystal, his expression twisting into something that it hurts Cindy's heart to see. After the first couple times, she sighs and sets down her wrench.

"Why do you keep torturing yourself with this, hun?"

Prompto's gaze jerks away from the Crystal and back to her, surprised like he hadn't realized she would notice. Or hadn't been aware of how achingly broken he looks. "I...." His eyes drift back toward the Crystal again before he winces and catches himself. He ducks his head, running a hand over his face and back through his hair. "....I want to help. We couldn't.... we couldn't do anything. We couldn't help, couldn't stop... anything. But this is something I can do, even if it's just fetching and carrying stuff."

Cindy's expression softens, and she picks up her wrench to offer it to him. "Here, Wedge is trying to extract some of the fried bits from one of the external engines, you can go give him a hand."

Prompto's expression doesn't exactly brighten, but he manages to offer her a thin smile as he reaches out to take the tool. "Thanks."

He means for more than the wrench, and Cindy smiles gently at him in return and then shoos him outside. She understands him wanting to feel useful and stay busy, but she'll be damned if she's going to let him dwell on his guilt in the pale-blue light in here.

Cid comes to see it only once, ambling up the ramp with his hands in his pockets and his cap pulled low over his eyes. He must know Cindy's there but doesn't acknowledge her right away, just stands and stares into the heart of the Crystal with an unfathomable expression on his face. Cindy goes still, almost afraid to make any noise. She's never seen her grandfather look quite so regal, or quite so old and sad.

"You see now, don't you?" his voice is low and gravelly, but Cindy still jumps a bit as it breaks the absolute silence. Cid is still watching the Crystal, and continues before she can answer. "This Light ain't a protection, it never was. It's just a mark, pieces on a chess board, and when he wants to take you, he'll take you, and damn all the rest of us who aren't important to the Gods." His voice catches roughly and his lip curls, and for a heart-stopping moment Cindy thinks he's surely going to be struck down on the spot for blasphemy.

But there's nothing, only the eerily cold light of the Crystal, and after a moment Cid nods in satisfaction, as though that proves his point.

" _I hope you're happy,_ " he growls, turning on his heel to stalk away. Cindy's never heard him sound so bitter and angry before... and she knows that in that last snarl, he wasn't talking to her. 

\----

Aranea comes and goes. The airship is her baby, the only part of her old life she has left, but she doesn't feel a need to supervise their work, and says so.

"Wedge knows this girl inside-out and better than I do myself," she waves a hand dismissively, and gives Cindy a thoughtful, unreadable look. "And if Noct and the boys trusted you to handle their car, your skills are fine." Her tone is casual and airy, but Cindy feels complimented all the same.

The rest of the time she and Biggs spend out in the darkness, helping the local hunters with the daemons that just keep popping up, bigger and stronger and bolder than ever before. The lights of Hammerhead seem to keep them at bay, but they can always be heard out in the darkness, growling for blood. There's no reprieve from them now, with no sun to rise and chase them back. Any mistrust the hunters might have had for her as a mercenary and former agent of the Empire, it's swept away the first time she charges in and puts herself at risk to save one of their own.

The hours fall into disorganized chaos without the sun to impose a schedule. Hunters are needed at all hours now, and take to sleeping in shifts. Cindy and Wedge work until they get tired or hungry and take breaks as dictated by their needs, rather than any arbitrary meaning of 'evening' or 'night'.

"...Tiny Bronco!"

Aranea looks up from where she's resting on a crate, out of the way of the two mechanics working. It had been silent save for the clang of metal and an occasional muttered swear, and she gives Cindy a funny look for the out-of-context exclamation. " _What?_ "

Wedge pops up from behind the tangle of wires he'd been working with, eyes wide in delight. "That's perfect!" He glances at Aranea apologetically and offers, "We've been trying to come up with a name for her."

"For..." Aranea looks blank for a moment, and then squawks. "You're _naming my airship_?!"

"Sure!" Cindy grins at her. "It's a Lucian tradition to name ships and even cars, I dunno why it wouldn't apply to airships too. I was surprised when Wedge said Ni- Graleans don't do that."

Aranea throws her an unreadable look for her correction, and Cindy smiles. She hadn't been entirely aware that 'Niff' was considered a slur, but it made sense once Wedge quietly told her, and she's been trying to do better.

"...Fine," Aranea throws up her hands, conceding. "But why 'Tiny Bronco'?"

"When you guys came in on backfirin' engines she was jumping all over the place, just like a wild mesmir. I'm impressed Wedge managed to get 'er down in one piece. And Wedge says she's small compared to other airships." _Very_ small, to hear Wedge tell it, and Cindy would love to see one of the bigger ones someday. This is just a troop transport, meant to carry small groups of soldiers from place to place; having even six people and the bulk of the Crystal in it for the flight from Gralea to here had been pushing it. But Wedge has been happy to share tales of cruisers, sky yachts, flagships, even a whole castle that could fly, though Cindy's not sure she believes that one.

Aranea sighs, but there's a bit of a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. "Alright fine, it's not the worst thing you could have come up with." She sits back and leans against the wall, crossing her arms and letting the two of them get back to work. For a few minutes there's only the clanging of their tools and the odd, sub-audible hum the Crystal sometimes seems to emit. Aranea shifts uneasily, then says to fill the silence, "I can hardly believe you've never worked on an airship before."

Cindy shrugs easily, ducking down to peer into a gap between two components, trying to tell if a weld is still sound. "It ain't that different, really. Wires are wires and engines are engines, this one's just a bit bigger and got more spinnin' parts."

There's an odd sound from Aranea, and when Cindy looks up she realizes the other woman is laughing quietly. She hasn't seen Aranea really smile before, and it makes her look more her age, less the imposing commander. Less stern, and more like how Wedge describes her, warm in her own way and quietly caring. Cindy realizes she likes that smile quite a bit.

"Come here," Aranea beckons, and Cindy leans forward without thinking about it. Aranea huffs and shakes her head, still smiling as she grabs a cloth from a nearby bin and leans forward to dab it over Cindy's nose. "You've got grease all over you."

It's Cindy's turn to laugh, though her stomach does a weird twist-and-flop when Aranea's fingers brush her cheek, warm and rough with calluses, much like Cindy's own. "That's the first thing you gotta learn about me, Nea," she grins teasingly, feeling a warm burst of pride at the surprise on Aranea's face over the nickname. "There's _always_ gonna be grease."

A roar from outside bursts the moment like a bubble. Aranea's instantly on her feet, snatching her lance from where it was leaning in the corner and her helmet from a peg on the wall. But she pauses at the top of the ramp, looking back at Cindy with an expression Cindy can't even begin to read, and Cindy swallows hard. Her cheeks are probably red under the grease, but she shakes her head and motions for Aranea to go.

She turns back to her work, the clatter of Aranea's boots still echoing in the small space, and wonders how such a warm, light moment could exist in a world so dark and cold. 

\----

They don't stay.

The entire world has been plunged into darkness, and there's crisis and chaos everywhere. Cindy feels overwhelmed as the news comes in, stories of death and terror, people being forced to flee their homes and congregate anywhere they can find light to keep the daemons at bay; Lestallum, Galdin Quay, Hammerhead. The cities are quickly overwhelmed, scared people fighting for any sort of small selfish safety.

It's Ignis who rouses, steps forward with Cor at his back to try and bring some sort of order and fairness. People see the royal black coat, the red-soled shoes, and even now that holds some power. There are still tempers, but there's an uneasy quiet, a willingness to at least listen, to cling to a semblance of the old order, when Insomnia was strong and whole, and the sun was up.

"I can't imagine being in that spot," Cindy admits quietly to Aranea as they finish up the last few repairs on the Bronco. They'll be leaving soon, Aranea and Biggs and Wedge, to take the Crystal to its hiding place on Angelgaard and then to ferry Ignis and Gladio to Lestallum. Most people seem to be congregating there, and it's in the most need of a steady guiding hand and extra hunters. Prompto will be staying in Hammerhead, at least for now, to help out the hunters here. "To have all these frightened people expecting me to have the answers..."

"Ignis has trained for this his whole life," Aranea points out. "And he'll have Leonis and Amicitia to back him up, not that he needs it."

"True," Cindy sighs and dusts her hands off, reaching under the control panel to double check the last few connections are secure. "But I meant... What can _I_ do? You're right, they're Crownsguard, they've got this. I'm just... me."

She catches the motion of Aranea's silver hair out of the corner of her eye, and straightens up to see the other woman giving her an incredulous look. " _You_ , Cindy Aurum, are the best mechanic I've ever met, and I'm including Wedge in that. You've gotten the Bronco flying again without ever _seeing_ an airship before, just feeling your way along. You could probably repair anything if you really wanted to." Aranea pauses, her expression sobering. "We're going to need that, in another few months."

Cindy shivers. Everyone's been trying to get through one day at a time, it's been hard to try and think about months, or worse, _years_ from now, but Aranea's right and she feels stupid for not having realized before. Lights are suddenly the most important technology they have; lights and the electrical grids that support them, and the vehicles to get people quickly through the dark spaces in between.

"Thanks," she says softly, and she can feel the new, grim determination rising inside her. Aranea's _right_. In another few months, lightbulbs are going to begin to blow, wires will fray. The meteor is still producing power at the Disc, thank the Six, but the power plant itself will need to be maintained. Cindy knows she can count on Holly and the rest of her girls for that, but there needs to be some coordination to make sure everything that will need to be repaired gets repaired as fast as possible.

She takes a deep breath and straightens her shoulders, and Aranea grins. 

\-----

Time dissolves into even more of a blur than it had while Cindy was focused on repairing the Bronco.

Prompto, bless him, takes charge of a small handful of hunters they can trust not to break things and leads scouting parties into any abandoned homes or settlements they can find, scavenging for materials. Unbroken lightbulbs of any kind are the most rare and precious, but wires and cables are just as valuable. When they can, they bring back vehicles, and entire light fixtures and appliances so Cindy and her team of apprentices can cannibalize them for parts.

Talcott turns out to be a natural, eager to learn and often glued to Cindy's side. She teaches him to splice wires and weld, and he takes to it with the seriousness that the darkness brings, wears burn scars on his fingers like badges of pride. He's the one who spends hours fiddling with blown but intact bulbs, figuring out the delicate techniques needed to replace the filaments and reseal the bulbs. They don't last as long the second or third time around, but it's better than nothing.

A man named Scaeva, former Crownsguard who'd always had an interest in mechanics, takes charge of the supply warehouse where Prompto and his team dump everything they bring back from the dark. Cindy doesn't know what she'd do without him, he keeps meticulous notes of everything they have, as well as repair jobs that have been requested and things they _don't_ have, but there's a demand for.

Cindy's world narrows and broadens at the same time. She still spends most of her time in Hammerhead, and most of her energy keeping vehicles running. That's still her strong point, and no one can install headlights or change a tire or replace an engine igniter faster than her. But little by little she somehow finds herself in charge of the growing network of engineers that's holding Eos duct taped together. She travels to Lestallum to consult with Ignis and Holly and help with major overhauls and repairs. There are people reporting to _her_ , filing reports and requests for service.

It's insane. She'd never imagined anything like this for herself. All she's ever wanted was to take over one humble garage. But here she is, and this is work that's sorely needed. She's not going to shirk what she's increasingly seeing as her duty. What kind of person would she be, if people asked her for help and she said no? She'd never be able to look her Pawpaw in the eye again.

She and Aranea only cross paths occasionally, but Cindy doesn't have the time or energy for regret. Aranea spends most of her time using the Bronco as a ferry to get people where they need to be quickly and safely, since there are no daemons in the sky. Her combat skills are also in demand, and once when she brings the Bronco to Hammerhead for repairs she spends the time regaling Cindy with the story of helping a team take down a Red Giant the size of the airship itself. Cindy tries not to worry, and can't help the curl of warmth that still shows up whenever the silver-haired dragoon glances her way.

Somehow, though sheer dumb luck, airship fuel is not in short supply. In addition to engineering whatever the hell MTs are, the Empire had also built a system to transform Scourge miasma and daemon blood into fuel. Cindy and Talcott have been studying it every time the Bronco is in Hammerhead, but it's going to take them a long time to try and reverse-engineer it and apply it to cars and trucks, and the Bronco can't be spared for that long.

"Make sure she's as good as you can make her," Aranea says, hovering more than she usually does while Wedge and Cindy are tuning up the airship. Cindy pulls back to raise an eyebrow at her, and Aranea shrugs slightly. "We're going back to Gralea, to see if there's anything of value we can scavenge. If you think she can make it that far?"

Cindy purses her lips, looks at where the Bronco is starting to sport more and more electrical tape and paperclips. "She will, but if you're going to go, you should do it soon. We're starting to run low on parts I can make fit into her."

"That's part of why we're going," Aranea nods. "To look for spare parts. Specifically for the Bronco, but anything we can haul back, really."

"Biggs and Wedge are going with you?" Aranea nods again, and Cindy pauses for a long moment, chewing on her lower lip. Then her resolve strengthens, and she straightens her shoulders. "I'm coming too."

"What?!" Aranea doesn't _quite_ yell, but it's clear Cindy took her by surprise. "Hell no! Gralea is abandoned, the place is crawling with daemons."

"Do you know what to look for?" Cindy counters. "Do you know what kind of machines would be useful to have, and what would just take up space?" Part of her thinks she should probably send Prompto, he'd be able to tell what would be useful almost as well as her. But she can't ask him to go back there, to the place they lost Noctis. Cindy doesn't have any negative memories of the place, and she's gotten to be a much better shot since the darkness set in. Combat still isn't her strong suit, but she's fairly confident she can hold her own with the others to watch her back. She can see Aranea wavering, and presses forward. "I won't be a burden."

"I never thought you would be," Aranea throws her hands up, relenting, and Cindy grins. She feels oddly triumphant, and straightens up, wiping her hands off on her jeans.

"I'll go see if Scaeva has a list of what we need most."

And that's how Cindy finds herself dressed in flak gear borrowed from a hunter, peering out the edge of the Bronco's windscreen as she sees Gralea for the first time. She doesn't know what she'd been expecting, she knows the fortress is abandoned, no lights anywhere. It's eerie, the Bronco's beams piercing through the gloom and shining off bits and pieces at a time; crumbling walls and the glitter of shattered glass. There's movement too, low dark skittering things and oily oozing things shrinking away from the light.

Cindy swallows, runs her hands over her guns to check them one more time. It's a pair borrowed from Prompto, sleek and sturdy Insomnian make, reliable even after years of wear. She checks her tools too; bolt cutters and wrench hanging from her belt to help them extract anything useful they find.

She's not _afraid_ , exactly, or no more afraid than she has been since this all started. She feels more reassured knowing Aranea and the boys will be with her, have her back. But there's inevitable nerves of not knowing what they're stepping into, fear that they might not find anything salvageable at all. They're running low on things, supplies they sorely need. If everything here has been ruined too....

There's a gentle bump as Wedge sets the Bronco down, the soft and familiar whine of the engines spinning down. "Well, here we are," he says with forced cheerfulness, turning away from the controls. "I'm leaving her in stand-by in case we need to get away in a hurry."

Aranea nods, unbuckling her harness and standing to grab her lance off its rack. Her face is set and serious, it reminds Cindy of the first time they'd met, bathed in a cold blue glow. Sometimes it's easy for Cindy to forget that she's actually a formidable commander, when she wants to be. "Biggs, take point, Wedge, bring up the rear. Let's go see what we can find."

"Got it boss," they both say, almost in unison, and Biggs hits the button to lower the ramp and let them out. Cindy takes a deep breath, then flips on the light clipped to her shoulder and follows Biggs down the ramp.

They stay in tight formation, no one straying too far away from the others. The lower floors of the fortress were all used for military purposes, but most of what they find is ruined beyond repair, either by daemons or by the Imperials themselves as the fortress fell and they fled.

"The airship hangers are around to the east, in a separate wing," Wedge says as they finish going through another demolished office, this one with an entire wall collapsed out into the hall where something truly monstrous had slammed through. "I think if we're going to find anything useful, it'll be there."

Aranea nods, since finding spare parts for the Bronco had been their main reason for coming here in the first place. She reaches up to flip up the visor on her helmet, tipping her head back to stare at the ceiling thoughtfully as though she can see what lies above them. "Let's keep going another few floors. I think we're almost to the scientific sections, maybe not as much was wrecked there."

The rest of them nod and fall back into formation. They take a short rest in the next stairwell, easily defended above and below, and then keep going. Sure enough, after another floor of offices, they start finding more machinery, more equipment than just fried computers. The purposes of some of it are a complete mystery, but there's enough wires and universal connectors that Cindy tags it for them to grab on their way back down. Whatever it did originally, she and Talcott can rip it apart for a dozen other things that need parts.

Another two floors up, they both pause in the doorway, unsure what they're looking at.

It's a huge room, stretching out further than their clip-on lights reach, the far wall lost in the dark. It looks like some kind of lab, with rows of glass tanks with open tops, wrapped up in machinery. They remind Cindy of domestic fish tanks, and she has to swallow back a nervous giggle. Whatever the Imperials kept in these, it probably wasn't pet fish. Everything is eerily intact save a thick layer of dust, nothing smashed or broken, as though the people working here just turned off the lights and went home one day.

There's no sound save their own breathing, the clink of the butt of Aranea's lance tapping the ground as she shifts. Cindy strains her eyes, but she can't see anything moving in the darkness, and after a few tense minutes her curiosity wins out and she moves forward. Aranea follows her, and Biggs and Wedge stay by the door to make sure nothing sneaks in after them.

Aranea walks over to a computer on one of the desks, wiping the accumulated grime off the screen and pressing the power key experimentally. Nothing happens, and she makes a scoffing sound. "Think we should try and grab the hard drives, just in case there's something useful on them?"

Cindy shrugs. "I'm a mechanic, not a computer scientist. We got anyone who could actually make heads or tails of 'em?"

"Maybe," Aranea ponders for another moment, then sighs. "But not anyone with the time to fiddle around with them when so much else needs to be done." She turns away from the computer, surveying the rest of the room. "What in the world were they doing in here?"

"The tops are open," Cindy notes, walking closer to one of the tanks and peering through the dusty glass. "So nothing that needed to be contained...." she trails off, squinting as she tries to make out the shadowy shapes in the dark tank. She wipes some of the dust away, angling her light to be able to see better. For a moment it just looks like a jumble of junk, wire, crinkled paper and twisted rope.

But then she looks closer, realizes what she's seeing are plants, withered and dried and dead from lack of care. Her eyes go wide and she steps back, turning to stare down the long row of tanks, the pipes that she now sees are a watering system, the wires leading to-

"Plants," she tells Aranea almost numbly, staring at the wide metal hood over the top of the tank she's nearest, the dusty but unbroken bulb nestled within. "These are all plants."

"Hydroponics," Aranea's eyebrows go up. "Huh. Too bad we can't reconnect the power somehow, it would be useful for..." she sucks in a sudden breath as she realizes the same thing Cindy has, her gaze flying upward.

"Lights," Cindy breathes. "Powerful ones. And if they had this many, there's gotta be spare bulbs stored somewhere."

"We've got company!" Biggs calls from the door before they can get too much further in their exploration, and they both hear the telltale hiss of forming daemons.

Aranea swears under her breath, flipping her lance around to grip it in both hands and crouching, preparing to spring through the door as soon as Biggs steps out of the way. "Stay here, Cindy!"

"Oh like hell-!" Aranea darts away before Cindy can finish her protest, and there's an aborted shriek as the first imp dies. Cindy shivers at the way the noise echoes in the metal hallway, then takes a deep breath and tells herself firmly to grow the fuck up. There isn't room in here to use even her smaller sidearm, so she unclips her wrench from her belt and hefts it, moving forward to hover in the doorway. They've made an incredible discovery, one that could mean everything to the refugees huddled at the outskirts of Hammerhead and Lestallum. Like hell is she going to let any daemons in to wreck it.

Wedge gives a shout of warning from further down the hall, and Cindy turns. There's a flicker of movement, and she catches a glimpse of sickly green and yellow skin and swings on instinct. The impact of the wrench against the imp's skull jolts up her arms, surprising her so that she nearly drops the wrench. The imp shrieks, thrown into the nearest wall where it immediately evaporates into a sticky stain of ichor. Cindy swallows hard and shakes herself, taking a firmer grip on her wrench, jaw set as she watches for any other imps coming into reach.

It's over quickly, all told, a half-dozen imps easily taken care of between the four of them. It's not Cindy's first daemon battle but it does leave her breathing hard, leaning back against the wall once the hissing has fallen back into eerie quiet.

"Are you okay?" Aranea makes her way over, reaching out to put a hand on Cindy's shoulder. Even though her helmet visor Cindy can see the concern on her face, and she gives a tired smile.

"I'm okay, promise. Not my first goblin rodeo."

Aranea shakes her head, but looks relieved. She gives Cindy's shoulder a squeeze before stepping back again. "Did you seriously hit imps with a _wrench_?"

Cindy shrugs, belatedly thinking to check her wrench over for any damage, but apparenly the heavy iron is plenty strong against daemon skulls. There's not even so much as a dent. "Use what you've got to hand, Pawpaw always says."

Aranea shakes her head again, but she's smiling, and it warms Cindy all through. "Alright, let's start getting these lights out of here before the imps bring friends. The last thing we need is any kind of bomb showing up."

"Yes boss!" 

\----

"Well well, lookit that. Baby Crownsguard comin' to see old Cid."

Cindy pauses what she's doing and blinks, raising her head curiously. Cid hasn't left Hammerhead since the darkness fell, and he hadn't left all that often even before. Hammerhead had plenty of hunters around who were former 'Guard, but she hadn't heard that the Marshal was actually trying to get new recruits.

She decides that the paperwork will keep, and gets up to go peer out into the porch area where Cid is sitting. It can't really be called a 'porch' anymore without a sun to bask in, but it's open to the air and still well under the protection of their lights, out of the way enough that Cindy can get on with the work in the garage while Cid can still feel like he's helping by watching and shouting advice.

Cid is right where she left him, sitting in his chair with a half-empty beer on the table beside him, hat tipped back as he looks up at the tall figure looming over him. Cindy's heart thuds on reflex, but Cid is perfectly relaxed. He's even _smiling_ a little, in his own way, half twisted and bitter but still some good humor and affection scraped along underneath.

It's not a new recruit, Cindy realizes. It's Cor.

She's too far away and at the wrong angle to see the Marshal's face, but Cid's smile slips until he just looks tired. "What, Leonis?"

Cor shifts restlessly, and Cindy's reminded of a sabertusk she'd once seen, cut off from its pack by a rock slide. The way it had paced back and forth, tail lashing, throwing itself at the rocks trapping it again and again no matter how hopeless escape seemed, vibrating with frustrated energy. Like it knew there was no way out, but it was against its nature to not try, and so it would rather pace itself into exhaustion than sit quietly and starve.

"Altissia's gone," Cor says, voice quiet and gruff. Cindy has to strain to hear it from where she's standing in the shadows of the garage's doorway, and she wonders why Cor of all people is bringing this news to Hammerhead. "Most of their generators were wrecked when the Oracle's death caused Leviathan to flood the city. They'd gotten a few working again before the night fell, enough to power some lights, but the last of those gave out this week." Cid's face is going somber and hooded, shoulders slumping tiredly, but he doesn't interrupt and Cor continues on, voice strangely flat like he's giving a mission report to a superior officer. "There's no way to properly confirm a casualty count, but we don't think there were too many. Most people who could leave already had."

" 'Cept for sentimental old fools too stubborn to leave their homes," Cid spits, his voice rough from all the emotion Cor's isn't. "Fuck."

"I can't confirm," Cor says again, and _there's_ the emotion, a twisting thread of pleading that weaves through his words. "Maybe he did get out. Lestallum is a disorganized disaster, he could be-"

"He's not," Cid snorts, and Cor... folds. He slumps, shoulders and spine bowing in as he slides down to sit on the ground beside Cid's chair, uncaring of the dust that gets into the folds of his tattered and remended uniform. Cindy's shocked by the action, the vulnerability Cor would usually _never_ allow himself to show, and realizes that maybe he only is because he thinks he and Cid are alone. She knows her grandfather has known the Marshal for a long time, but she's starting to think she'd underestimated how long. She isn't meant to see this. But still.... she can't seem to pull herself away, frozen in place by the power of a grief she can only barely catch at the edges of. She can at least stand watch, make sure no one else comes by to stumble upon the Marshal in a moment of weakness.

Cid sighs, soft and devoid of the annoyance Cindy is used to, and reaches out to put a hand on the top of Cor's head.

" _Why?_ " Cor whispers against Cid's knee, ragged and only just barely loud enough for Cindy to hear.

"Y'don't wanna hear my answer to that," Cid sighs again, tipping his head back to look up at the inky sky. "You've still got too much faith."

"What faith?" Cor asks bitterly. "Faith in the gods who abandoned us? The ones who abandoned-"

He stops short, and Cindy, who only guesses what he was going to say, still feels the names fall into the silent darkness around them, hard enough to create ripples.

Cid takes a deep breath, lets it out slow, his fingers still carding through Cor's short hair like he's a child instead of a grown and war-weary man. It reminds Cindy of when she was little, sick with the flu and miserable, Cid's callused fingers brushing soothingly through her hair.

"Nah," he says after a moment, snorting softly. "Got that burned out of you when the wall fell, I expect. But here you are, still on your feet, still moving forward."

"I have to," Cor says, automatic and almost numb, forehead still resting against Cid's knee. "It's the last thing he asked of me. To watch out for Noctis."

"Noctis ain't here," Cid points out mildly, and now Cor raises his head. Whatever the look on his face, it makes Cid smile.

"He'll be back," Cor says, solid and sure, and Cid gives the top of his head one last pat before withdrawing his hand.

"There, there's your faith." 

\----

The whine of the Bronco's engines are a familiar comfort, now.

This time, though, they sound... odd. Not sputtering like they're damaged, but not quite normal either. There's a slight whine to them that sets Cindy's teeth on edge, has her up out of her seat and already headed outside before she's finished wondering why the _hell_ Wedge is trying to land her with the mag-gravs disengaged.

The answer, she realizes with a sinking heart once she gets outside, is that Wedge isn't the one flying. For once, the Bronco is living up to her name, jerking and twisting in the sky as whoever _is_ flying her tries to get a handle on the controls. It's mercifully slow, speed reduced as much as possible as the airship inches toward the ground, but Cindy still winces when she lands on her belly and settles with a groan. They hadn't even put the _landing gear_ down. Fine time for Wedge to decide to try teaching Biggs to fly.

Luckily they'd landed fairly close to the usual place, right at the edge of the parking lot and still well within the radius of the lights, so Cindy's waiting when the landing ramp finally lowers, ready to give Biggs a piece of her mind.

She never gets the chance to.

As soon as the ramp is lowered, Aranea clatters down it and straight into Cindy's arms, hugging her so hard it squeezes the breath right out of her. Cindy's so surprised that for long moments she can't react, beyond bringing her arms up automatically to wrap around Aranea in return. Aranea has her face buried in Cindy's neck, and it's strange, the little pieces Cindy remembers later.

Aranea smells like smoke, and the ends of her hair are singed.

She's shaking.

Cindy raises her gaze to where Biggs is standing at the top of the ramp, his hat twisted in his hands. The raw anguish on his face takes her breath away, and her eyes fill with tears as she realizes the truth.

Wedge hadn't been trying to teach him to fly.

Wedge isn't here. He's somewhere far away, burned on a pyre to prevent him from rising as a daemon.

Biggs sees her looking, and bows his head. His voice is quiet, but carries down the ramp to Cindy regardless. "He said.... said she's in your hands now, Cindy."

Cindy can't even swallow around the lump in her throat, and in her arms Aranea shudders. Cindy looks down at the top of her head, and it makes her think of Cor on his knees in Hammerhead's dust. Even the strongest people couldn't keep going forever, not without rest. Not here in the dark, where the grief weighed so heavy.

"Go on," Biggs says softly, and Cindy looks up at him again. He tries for a smile, though his own eyes are swimming with unshed tears. "Your grandad offered us a drink last time we were here, think I'll go take him up on it. Long as you can take care of her?"

Cindy nods, her arms tightening around Aranea a bit involuntarily. "Yeah, I've got 'er."

She takes Aranea by the hand and pulls her toward the garage, guiding her up the narrow, winding stair and pushing up the trapdoor that lets them out onto the roof. The space is small, but as a child it had been her clubhouse, her sunning spot, her place to run when she was angry or hurt or wanted to be alone.

Now she sits, and Aranea folds into her side, clinging like she's afraid Cindy will vanish into embers and darkness too. Cindy rests her cheek against the top of Aranea's head, combing fingers gently through her hair, and listens to the howls of daemons out beyond Hammerhead's lights.

It takes her an embarrassingly long time to realize that with his last words, Wedge might not have been referring _only_ to the Bronco.

But that's alright. Cindy already knows she'll take care of them both. 

\----

It's hard to break time into exact days or weeks or months without the sun or moon to guide them, but at some point Cindy looks up and realizes _years_ have passed. Talcott is nearly as tall as her shoulder and getting taller, and the refugees who've taken charge of tailoring duties are having trouble finding clothes for him before he outgrows them. Luckily, despite growing up in war and crisis he seems to be a good-hearted and cheerful boy, as well as hard-working, and doesn't seem to mind dressing in a mix of Prompto's old things and cast-offs from Scaeva and a few of the other local men.

Talcott isn't the only one growing up, either. One day Cindy hears a voice that she swears is familiar, but can't quite place. It tickles at the edge of her memory, bothering her until she rolls out from under the truck she's repairing and sticks her head outside.

She doesn't immediately recognize the woman talking to Talcott; tall and dressed in the usual mismatch of 'whatever's warm enough' hunter gear, her dark hair cut close around her face where it won't be in the way. It isn't until she leans forward to ruffle Talcott's hair, lifts one foot off the ground, that Cindy sees the soles of her boots are red.

 _That_ still means something. Cor doesn't seem to care but the rest of them do, all the hunters deciding pretty much unanimously that the red-soles are still a symbol, hope and prayers for protection, faith in the old ways, loyalty to Noctis in a very real, very tangible way. You had to _earn_ the right to wear red-soles now, and as far as Cindy remembers there's very few people who do.

For awhile, Prompto and Gladio had both tried to stop wearing theirs, out of some kind of misplaced guilt. Cid and Cor, respectively, had eventually sat them down and boxed their ears until they realized what a disservice that was, not only to Noctis but to all the men and women who _needed_ that sort of symbol right now, when so much else was lost. Ignis still wears his along the dusty streets of Lestallum, of course, and Cor. A few other hunters had earned their red-soles over the years; a former Kingsglaive who'd survived the fall of Insomnia, a hunter who'd saved Cor's life almost at the cost of his own... and Iris Amicitia, Gladio's younger sister.

And she'd definitely _earned_ them. Iris the Daemon-slayer, Cindy has heard her called, and she wears the red-soles proudly.

She turns at Cindy's approach and smiles, and Cindy's struck by how much she looks like Gladio. She's only met the girl a time or two before, but returns the smile warmly. "What can I do for ya today, Lady Amicitia?"

She'd meant it playfully, but realizes her mistake when Iris grimaces and shakes her head, eyes going dark. "Just Iris is fine," she says. "I prefer using titles I've _earned_."

There's a bitterness under there that Cindy hadn't expected, but she can't blame Iris. It's the same weary bitterness she hears from others, ground down and dispirited by the dark. The surprise must show on her face, because Iris sighs and rubs a hand over her short hair, a gesture so much like Gladio that it has Cindy smiling a little again, more softly.

"Sorry, I just... I _am_ actually a Lady, you know? Under Insomnia's old noble system, like any of that fucking matters at all anymore." She scowls, and after a thoughtful moment Cindy takes her arm to lead her inside the garage. Talcott doesn't follow them, and Cindy steers Iris around to sit her down on a stool. Iris slumps down onto it, still scowling tiredly, and Cindy leans back against the truck across from her, wondering what to say.

It turns out she doesn't need to say anything, because after a moment of staring down at her hands Iris looks up at her again, amber eyes dark in a pain that reminds Cindy of the hitch in Gladio's voice when he said Noctis was _gone_. "I hate that people pretend it still matters," she says, hands twisting together in her lap, and Cindy tilts her head in silent encouragement. "I hate when people tell me how much I look like Dad, or how _proud_ he'd be of me and Gladdy. It doesn't matter how proud he'd be, because he's not. He's not _here_ -" Her voice catches and she bites her lip, shoulders hunching a little. "....Sorry. You didn't ask-"

Cindy interrupts her, though gently. "Your daddy died defending King Regis, right? When Insomnia fell?"

Iris swallows hard and nods, and Cindy wonders if she ever got time to really grieve that. After a moment she rallies, and Cindy can almost visibly see the grief sliding back behind the harder mask Iris wears, anger and bitterness to protect the fragile core. Cindy tries to remember how old she is. Nineteen? Twenty at the most?

"It didn't matter," she repeats, low and angry, so much _pain_ bubbling up inside of her that it hurts Cindy to look at. "Insomnia still fell, didn't it? King Regis still died. He sent me away because he _knew_ , so why didn't he-" she breaks off and swallows again, shoulders slumping.

Cindy doesn't know what to say. She's a mechanic, not even remotely qualified to help Iris deal with her grief. Although....

Cindy sighs, turning a bit where she's leaning against the hood of the truck, reaching over to run her fingers over the shell of the headlights bolted to the front. "My parents both died when I was a little girl," she says, and out of the corner of her eye she watches Iris' head come up, words of condolence lost when she sees Cindy's face. "I'd stayed the weekend here with Pawpaw, they were on their way to come pick me up. But they had engine trouble, got stranded on the road out past sunset."

Iris swallows. Even years ago, being out after dark without a way to defend yourself meant there'd be nothing but an abandoned car in the morning. "I'm sorry," she says softly.

Cindy takes a deep breath, and looks over to meet Iris' gaze. "I'm not." She watches the shock on Iris' face, continues before she can interrupt. "Oh, I miss them so much. It still hurts, especially the way Pawpaw looks at me sometimes and I know he's seeing my daddy or mama instead. But because they died the way they did, I dedicated myself to mechanics, to making sure no one _else_ died stuck on the side of the road without somethin' to keep daemons at bay. There's been a thousand headlights installed in their names, lots of lives saved because theirs weren't. Maybe if they'd lived, I wouldn't be where I am today, and there'd be a lot more _other_ people dead instead of them."

"But then you'd still have your parents," Iris points out, almost numbly.

"Am I more important than everyone else in the world?" Cindy asks, and softens when she sees Iris flinch. She pushes away from the truck, crossing over to kneel in front of her and take Iris' hands in hers. "I'm not saying you can't miss him. It's always going to hurt. But he made his choices, even if they're not the ones you would have made, or the ones you _wish_ he'd made. If you and Talcott were out there fighting daemons right now, wouldn't you risk your life to protect him? Even if the odds were against you and he was probably going to die anyway?"

"Of course!" Iris says, fiercely and without hesitation. "He's my _friend_ -"

Cindy nods, and watches as the point hits home. Iris' expression crumples, and Cindy tugs gently on her hands. Iris slides off the stool and into Cindy's arms, burying her face in the mechanic's shoulder. All Cindy can do is wrap her arms around her and hold on tight, rest her cheek against Iris' hair and hope that maybe, in the long run, all the sacrifices will mean something. 

\----

"Yer gonna break an ankle if ya keep landing like that."

Aranea blinks and turns away from Cindy, leaning the butt of her lance on the ground and putting her other hand on her hip. "I beg your pardon?"

Cid scoffs from where he's leaning in the doorway of the garage, arms crossed over his chest. "When ya jump. How do ya even fight in those boots?"

"Magic," Aranea scoffs back just as dryly, and Cindy hides a smile behind her hand. She wants to learn to be a better fighter, so she can pitch in with the hunters when dangerous daemons or desperate beasts stray too close to Hammerhead and not rely solely on her shotgun and her wrench. Aranea had offered to show her some basics with a lance, so they've been spending the morning practicing basic grips and how to handle the lance without stabbing anything you don't _want_ to stab. "What would you know anyway, old man?"

Cid draws himself up to his full height, trying to look imposing despite that he's shorter than both Cindy and Aranea. He's scowling, but Cindy can tell it's his usual grumpy scowling, not actual anger. Aranea calls him 'old man' in the same tone he calls Cor 'Baby Crownsguard'. "Reg sure seemed to appreciate the way I used my lance."

Cindy catches the flicker of dark sorrow across his face, and feels her heart swell. She hasn't heard her grandfather refer to the king that familiarly in.... years and years. She wonders at the change, but Aranea doesn't notice and snickers openly. "Wanna rephrase that?" she drawls, and to Cindy's amazement, Cid turns bright red.

"Godsdamnit woman," he huffs, uncrossing his arms and storming over to hold his hand out to Aranea. "Give me that. I can still show you a trick or two."

Cindy feels an immediate flash of concern. It's on the tip of her tongue to try and diffuse this, to talk Cid out of what's surely going to be a thrown back or twisted ankle of his own, but Aranea beats her to it. She thrusts her lance into Cid's hands, smirking widely and (Cindy's sure) in honest delight. "Alright then, go on."

Cid takes a moment, running his hands over the shaft of the weapon, adjusting his grip after years out of practice. It gives Cindy enough time to step forward. "Pawpaw, maybe you shouldn't-"

She should really know better than to try and tell Cid Sophiar he shouldn't do something. He scowls at her, then whips around, flipping his grip on the lance to an overhand one. He pulls back his arm, taking a moment to be sure of his aim, then flings the lance out into the darkness at the edge of the parking lot. The lance whistles through the air, straight and true, and there's the shriek of a dying goblin.

Cindy raises her eyebrows, impressed despite herself.

"My lance!" Aranea shrieks, running for where it had landed to reclaim it.

"Ha, still got it." Cid looks incredibly smug and pleased with himself, at least until he turns to start making his way back inside. "....Ow." 

\----

They're sleeping when the commotion starts.

It's the roar of Talcott's truck that wakes them; his muffler had finally given up to rust about a month ago, and since it doesn't effect the way the truck functions Cindy hasn't gotten around to replacing it yet. Talcott swears that the extra noise helps keep daemons away, too.

"Whaa?" Cindy murmurs, blinking sleepily. Their room is dark save for where the light of the floodlamps spills through the thick curtains. She's muzzy enough it can't be that long after they'd gone to bed, and Aranea is still curled against her back, one arm draped around Cindy's waist. After a long moment Cindy sighs and starts to shift, intending to go see what's got Talcott all fired up.

Aranea tightens her hold, keeping Cindy in place. "Don't," she murmurs, voice warm and husky against the middle of Cindy's back, making her shiver. "You were hauling engine parts around for hours, sleep. 'll go see what's going on."

Now that she's tried to move, Cindy can feel the twinges of protest in her shoulders and back, and relaxes back into the warmth of the bed gratefully. "Kay," she breathes, shifting to curl into Aranea's warm spot when she gets up. "Hurry back."

Aranea huffs softly, leaning down to brush a kiss across Cindy's forehead, earning a hum of pleasure from the mechanic. Then she grabs her shirt and tugs it on to go see what the fuss is about.

Cindy drifts for those few minutes, not quite asleep and not really awake, basking in the rare quiet and peace.

She's jarred fully awake when Aranea bursts back in, out of breath and eyes wide. For a moment Cindy's heart stutters, wondering who's died, what vital light failed- but then Aranea's face breaks into a wide, almost manic grin, one Cindy's never seen before and has her already halfway out of bed.

"Noctis is back." 

\---- 

In the end, the sun rises.

Cindy doesn't have the chance to stand and savor it. Daemon attacks are happening everywhere, as though they could sense what Noctis and the others are doing in the city and are doing everything they can to stop it. Hammerhead is no exception, and Cindy joins the ranks of the hunters to drive them off. Aranea's been teaching her a bit more of lance work, but there isn't a good lance to be spared for someone barely trained in it, so Cindy slings her rifle over her shoulder, grabs her biggest wrench, and heads for the edge of town.

She's so busy fighting that the sudden light takes her by surprise. For an instant, she thinks Cid or one of the other non-combatants has managed to aim one of Hammerhead's floodlights outward to illuminate the battlefield, but the quality of the light is all wrong. It's not the cool murky blue or stark white they've all grown used to from the artificial bulbs.

It's _warm_....

The pair of imps she's been fighting dissolve into miasma with a shriek, and as she looks around she realizes that _all_ the daemons are dying, dissolving, destroyed by the bright, radiant light of the rising sun. One of the other hunters falls to their knees, trembling and overcome by shock and relief. Cindy herself feels frozen, stuck staring even though the light hurts her eyes after so long in the dark.

"Thank the Astrals...." one of the older hunters murmurs, fervent and only just loud enough for Cindy to hear.

Somehow, that breaks her paralysis, and Cindy wheels on him, heart swelling with emotions she has no name for, skin prickling under the long-missed touch of the sun. "No," she says, firm and faithful and blinking back sudden tears. "Thank King Noctis."

The rest of the day is... very strange.

Cindy has gotten used to being _busy_ , to waking up and throwing herself head first into her to-do list, because there's always more to be repaired, more to be built, more than she has the hands and capabilities for. But today, for the first time in ten years, there isn't. Suddenly, everything can wait.

She walks back to the garage and finds Talcott and Cid staring up at the sky with identical, dumbfounded expressions on their faces, like very old and very young reflections of the same man. A laugh bubbles up inside of her, strange and almost nauseating after so long, but she lets it loose, lets herself laugh in the bright sunshine of an almost forgotten Hammerhead morning. Cid and Talcott turn their astonished stares onto her, and that only makes her laugh harder, until she has to sit down in the dust and there are tears streaming down her face.

Talcott walks over and drops down behind her, leaning his shoulders back against hers to brace them both. She leans into him, little brother and protegee, and tilts her head back to bask in the sun.

All of Hammerhead is in a daze, stunned and squinting from the sudden brightness they've been yearning for for so long. But slowly, the shock turns to glee, to _relief_ , to excitement. There will be more work to do, everyone knows that. People will want to at least try and reclaim Insomnia now that there aren't daemons swarming every crevice. Systems that worked in the darkness will need to be adapted into the light, people will be able to move away from their huddled clusters of light and spread out across the land again. They can actually start _agriculture_ again, provided the earth hasn't been irreparably damaged by the dark.

But all of those are concerns for tomorrow. Today, Takka is digging into the very back of his storage room, cooking with an almost wild abandon, treats that always seemed too indulgent when everyone was just trying to survive. Cid has exactly one bottle of whiskey left, good whiskey from before Insomnia fell, and the sunlight finally prompts him to crack it open and pour shallow glasses for himself and Cindy and Talcott. He recorks the bottle before it's empty though, slides it back into his hiding place, and Cindy knows without even needing to ask that he's saving the last of it to share with Cor.

If the Marshal made it. If any of them made it.

Cindy tries not to worry, as the day stretches on and the celebrations get louder and more joyful. But Talcott had told her that when he turned back at Insomnia's gates, Cor and Iris and Aranea had gone on, to shadow the boys and keep them safe. Biggs had taken the Bronco to wait at the edge of the city, to provide them a quick way back. Cindy had wanted to go with him, but he'd gently turned her down, saying that Hammerhead needed her and he could fly the old girl solo for that short of a distance.

Now Cindy wishes she'd insisted, because the waiting, the not _knowing_ , is killing her.

Eventually it's too much, she has to withdraw herself from all the celebrations raging on around her. She doesn't want to spoil anyone else's happiness, but she's too worried to allow herself to be swept away in it. Cid just gives her a knowing look and a nod, clapping a hand on her shoulder and giving it a brief squeeze before letting go.

She climbs up onto the roof of the garage, the place that's always been a retreat to her. The place she and Aranea have shared, and where Aranea will know to find her. She sits on the edge and lets her feet dangle over the side, her back to the party and the ruins of Insomnia in the distance, watching as the sun starts to sink.

All the joy of the sunrise is draining out of her now, raising goosebumps on her arms as she watches sunset creep closer. The whine of the Bronco's engines approaching and the shouts of delight and greeting from the crowd make some of the tension unknot from her shoulders, but she can't get up to go greet the returning heroes, can't even make herself turn around. She feels paralyzed, suddenly _fearing_ the dark in a way she hasn't in years, as though the single day of light and relief has stripped away all the toughness and grit in her.

That's where Aranea finds her, the familiar scuff of a red-soled boot on concrete bringing a relief even more intense than the sunrise. She sits down beside Cindy, and Cindy leans into her with a low sound that isn't - quite - a sob. Aranea huffs softly, but wraps her arms around her and clings just as tightly.

"I'm alright," she murmurs into Cindy's hair. "Promise."

They sit like that for awhile, heels idly kicking against the wall of the garage, listening to the singing and joyful shouts of Hammerhead coming truly alive, and watching the sun get lower and lower.

"What if-" Cindy swallows, her voice coming out a little strangled as she forces herself to give voice to her fears. "What if it's not over? What if the daemons come back once it's dark?"

Aranea hums softly, and Cindy will be forever grateful that she doesn't just dismiss her fears out of hand, actually considers them. She finds Cindy's hand, lacing their fingers together as the sun touches the distant horizon, the blue of the sky flaming red and purple. "If the daemons come back," she says after a long moment of thought. "I'll get my lance, and you can hit them with a wrench, and then I think we'll need to have some words with the gods."

Cindy stifles a laugh and leans her head on Aranea's shoulder, the ripples of her fear ebbing away like the tide going out.

Together, they watch the sunset.

**Author's Note:**

> This went quite differently than how I'd originally envisioned, but I'm very pleased with how it turned out. Thank you to the BB mods for putting this together and all your infinite patience!
> 
> Musical influences for the fic are [If We Make It Through The Night](https://open.spotify.com/track/56bf9aJxVk6ZlC79QfBt6l?si=aTDJkjRUSG6qmEB4RTvJkw), by The Rescues, and [Fear Not This Night](https://open.spotify.com/track/0LCRQLCwUb8H9sLw6e8f1U?si=G4h3NJUxS8K06afZSnCpCQ), specifically the version by Alina Lesnik.
> 
> Also, not a direct inspiration but I would be remiss if I didn't shout out [Eschaton](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12485428), by nirejseki, which is one of my all-time fav World of Ruin fics and influences how I picture it.


End file.
